Finished reading (2021): Searching for Stars on an Island in Maine by Alan Lightman 📚
Not as deeply thoughtful as I had hoped. In fact, Lightman’s reflections are often quite simplistic. But, as someone who has also spent a good amount of time looking up at the stars in Maine, I sympathize with the sentiment of the book. Ultimately, I think he asks the exact right question in an early chapter: “Do I know too much, or too little?”
Finished reading (2021): Evangelical Anxiety: A Memoir by Charles Marsh 📚
I’m too lazy to figure out all the reasons why, but reading this felt a lot like reading Stanley Hauerwas’s memoir, Hannah’s Child —I loved reading both, but I also found them strangly… conceited. In many places throughout Marsh’s book, there is a real quality of openness and honesty. But his honesty often seems more self-indulgant than vulnerable. Having grown up an anxious evangelical myself, I really wanted to relate deeply, but I’m afraid the book is geared toward (and from) something stereotypical like, oh, philosophy majors and professors of literature—not because it’s too heavy on philosophy or literature; the book is front-to-back beautifully and accessibly written. But there’s something about the air of it that, if nothing else, didn’t leave me with any desire to recommend it, nor, more importantly, to learn from it. I liked reading it, and there are points of depth and insight, but there isn’t much I will ultimately take to heart.
Finished reading (2021): The Dangers of Christian Practice by Lauren F. Winner 📚
A depth of honesty missing in almost every corner of theology and practice.
“This is a call for a kind of account—an account that speaks of the flaws and damages that we know to be inherent in the beautiful things with which we surround ourselves (or, better, the beautiful gifts with which God has seen fit to surround us).”
Finished reading (2021): The Emigrants by W. G. Sebald 📚
A piercing look into carried history. Finishing Sebald is always like waking up from a dream—whether dark or splendid I’m never sure.
Finished reading (2021): Bonhoeffer’s Religionless Christianity in Its Christological Context by Peter Hooton 📚
As expected, this did not disappoint. I don’t remember the last time a book on theology so thoroughly resonated with me. Though it remains limited in definition and shape, I have to think that there is an abundant, and growing, number of people, especially those in the current “deconstruction” movement, hungry for exactly what Bonhoeffer had in mind, to which Hooton has done diligent justice. I will definitely have more to say.
Currently Reading: Bonhoeffer’s Religionless Christianity in Its Christological Context by Peter Hooton 📚
I am beyond excited for this. As I wrote here, Bonhoeffer’s “religionless Christianity”—though mostly undefined and unfortunately titled—is pretty much where I’m at, but few seem to write faithfully about it. I have a good feeling about this one.
Quit reading (2021): The Will to See by Bernard-Henri Levy 📚
Couldn’t make it past the second chapter. It’s a shame that such a great title and subject is wasted, wasted, wasted on such self-absorbed rambling. If you want to know the most egotistical way to care about what goes on in the world, then I highly recommend this book.
Finished reading (2021): Light Perpetual: A Novel by Francis Spufford 📚
In many ways a very simple novel, though its grander picture is anything but. Some thoughts, here.
Finished reading (2002): A Pelican in the Wilderness: Hermits and Solitaries by Isabel Colegate 📚
A fascinating exploration of solitude, written, I think, in something quite close to the historical-travelogue voice of Rebecca West’s Black Lamb and Grey Falcon.
An excerpt, and an example of that voice in Colegate, can be read here. And for one of the best, but lengthy, examples of West, here.
Currently Reading: Erratic Facts by Kay Ryan 📚
Snagged a copy at Country Bookshelf in Bozeman.
“…sly rhymes and syncopations lend an off-foot musicality to unnerving wisdom.” If that is not a perfect definition of poetry…
